Customer:I recently purchased several rosetted (Purple & Red) for my imperial Yeomanry badges. I still need a dark blue one for my Yorkshire Dragoons. Can you help ?W - UK

WarHats:It would be cost prohibitive to have one made up so we thought we would experiment with dying one of our IY rosettes. We tried three different techniques and we were happy with number 2 (New-ish) and number 3 (Aged).Number three also has a lovely faded effect due to the red coming through from the original rosette. We are happy - was the customer? YES he was!

My order arrived safely today and again I am very pleased with everything. The quality of the material used in the hat covers is really good compared to the piece of flimsy, white cotton I received with my original hat from the States. (The hat itself is fine, just the cover was very lacking.)

The swordfish badge is also superb - the photos online do not do it justice.

All in all I am very happy and contented with my dealing with WarHats.com. It has been a pleasure to do business with you and to receive such excellent, personal service, and who knows, I may be back one day!

We thought it would be a great idea to point out the differences between the standard WW2 German Navy badge and the museum quality badge.

The first thing to say is that the standard badge is pretty good and works extremely well especially on aged caps as the bluntness of the finish actually augments the aged and worn finish.

The museum quality badge is slightly wider and taller than the standard badge, which reflects an original badge. We are only talking about 1 or 2mm.

The reverse of the badge is pretty obvious - two flat pins instead of rounded pins but the rear is where the main difference can be seen - the original badges and the museum quality ones are made from pressed metal and not cast as in the standard one.

Again this is no big deal for a display model as the back can't normally be seen but shows the research and effort carried out to get things 'right'.

The front of the badges are where the real differences come out. Notice on the museum quality badge (at the front) the eagle is not gleaming bright gold, it is a nice glowing gold metal finish.

Look at the detail on the two badges, the sharpness and quality detailing on the museum badge is outstanding. Again if you are ageing your badge then the standard badge is just as good as it can be made to look worn with the detail erased, but knowing the detail is there is a nice finishing touch.

In summary if you are ageing a cap then the standard badge is fine. If you want a badge for a new hat or want to lightly age a cap then the museum quality one is the most accurate for the job and well worth the extra cost.

We had a request to make a Third Fallschirmjager Schimpf badge from a member of a British Fallschirmjager re-enactment group. We turned this around within three weeks and the badge is now available for general sale. We decided to change slightly some of the features to prevent it being passed off as an original. The group were over the moon with their new item and left us the following comment:

“Wow the badge is amazing, it looks identical to the real thing, many thanks for helping us out with our 3 FJD display” – Mr. P. UK